EFF 'NATIONAL SHUTDOWN' UPDATES | Numerous arrests and disruptions reported from Sunday

March 20 2023 - 05:31

KZN: Tyres are burning underneath a bridge near the old Durban airport as the EFF embark on a national shutdown.

March 20 2023 

Police presence in Braamfontein as the #NationalShutdown has started. 
Footage from Sunday evening showed police arresting numerous people on the streets of Braamfontein. Law enforcement were seen clearing the roads of bricks and rubble after the arrests. Tear gas was deployed however it is unclear if this disruption was in relation to the planned protest, dubbed the 'national shutdown' by the EFF, on Monday.

Arrests  made in  Braamfontein

Police officers were seen arresting people in Braamfontein on March 19 2023 and law enforcement cleared roads lined with bricks and rubble on the eve of the planned 'national shutdown' protest.

Malema on shutdown: 'No-one can stop the revolution'

A defiant Julius Malema has vowed to push ahead with the EFF's national shutdown on Monday despite two court interdicts preventing violence and warnings from authorities that anyone breaking the law “will be dealt with”.

“Whether they kill or not kill, we will be on the streets of South Africa,” Malema said. “We don’t care what the security cluster says or the judge says. No-one can stop a revolution.”

But the national joint operational and intelligence structure (Natjoints) comprising the defence force, the state security agency and the police laid down the law on Friday. 

“This is our update to the country at large, that there will be no national shutdown. We know of a planned protest. To say there will be a national shutdown is misleading,” said Natjoints chair deputy national police commissioner Lt-Gen Tebello Mosikili.

EFF protest erupts in Chatsworth

March 19 2023 - 20:15

Durban Metro police confirmed an EFF protest was taking place in Chatsworth, south of Durban on Sunday night. 

The party would embark on a national shutdown on Monday.

Durban metro police spokesman Senior Superintendent Boysie Zungu said the EFF protest was in Link Road in Shallcross. 

Ramaphosa deploys more than 3,400 SANDF members at cost of R166m

March 19 2023 - 17:30

President Cyril Ramaphosa has deployed 3,474 South African National Defence Force members until April 17 to assist police under Operation Prosper. 

Parliament spokesperson Moloto Mothapo said on Sunday National Assembly speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and National Council of Provinces (NCOP) chairperson Amos Masondo were informed of the military deployment, in co-operation with police, for the “prevention and combating of crime as well as maintenance, and preservation of law and order in South Africa”. 

National police commissioner Fanie Masemola says passengers will be safe at OR Tambo Airport on Monday

March 19 2023 - 14:02

National police commissioner Gen Fanie Masemola has assured passengers boarding  and disembarking flights at OR Tambo international airport in Johannesburg of their safety during the national shutdown on Monday.

Masemola, accompanied by Gauteng commissioner Lt-Gen Elias Mawela and deputy national commissioner Lt-Gen Tebello Mosikili, was speaking at the airport on Sunday.

Sunday Times 

National shutdown: Businesses to defy EFF

Big business plans to defy  the EFF’s  call for a “national shutdown” tomorrow, though retailers, shopping malls and key economic hubs such as airports and ports have beefed up security.

The EFF has called for the shutdown to back its demand that President Cyril Ramaphosa leave office and to  protest against  load-shedding.  

Its  tactics  have included threats to businesses that remain open.

Businesses planning to operate are taking precautions as the 2021 riots that  hit KwaZulu-Natal and, to a lesser extent, Gauteng and Mpumalanga, are still fresh in people’s minds.

EFF shutdown call: a stern test for Ramaphosa

By late Friday afternoon, the army was out on some streets in Gauteng and EFF members were out on some streets in East London and Mdantsane “directing traffic”, as a friend there told me.

By sunset tomorrow we will know who or what has prevailed in our country. The might of the state and the rule of law, or chaos and intimidation. Welcome to the EFF’s ‘national shutdown’,  organised to protest against the economic damage of Eskom’s load-shedding and to call for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s resignation in the wake of revelations of the theft of dollars hidden in a sofa at his game farm in Limpopo.

The protest will not fix Eskom and it won’t move Ramaphosa. But that may not be its real intent. EFF leader Julius Malema needs to test his political muscle before campaigning starts for  next year’s elections. The extent to which he can bring people onto the streets tomorrow may be a good gauge of the electoral support he can expect then.

EFF's Julius Malema overblown by opponents

President Cyril Ramaphosa, security cluster ministers, the country's official opposition, several non-governmental organisations and some political commentators all agreed on one thing this week: defend South Africa against a national shutdown led by EFF leader Julius Malema.

The protest, expected to take place on Monday, is to call for the resignation of the president and an end to load-shedding among other demands. Malema urged businesses to shut their doors on the day.

The only way a DA minion can get noticed

If all Lungile Phenyane wanted was her two minutes of fame, she surely got it. The formerly unknown DA member hogged the headlines when it emerged that she was vying for all the top DA leadership positions ahead of the party’s federal congress next month.

Hogarth hears that she has since withdrawn from the race to be federal leader and has also decided not to contest Dion George for federal finance chair.

But she still insists on taking on Helen Zille for federal chair and will also avail herself to be elected chair of the federal council, deputy chair of the federal council and deputy federal chair. Since Phenyane is unlikely to win anything,

Hogarth proposes that the federal congress establish a new post in honour of Phenyane's tenacity: chair of chairs.

SA’s problems must be solved by the ballot box, not by an uprising

The EFF-led call for a national shutdown on Monday has placed the country on tenterhooks at a time it should be focusing on finding solutions to the many critical problems facing it.

Concerns about possible disruptions, even violence, have moved the government to try to re-assure the public of its readiness to deal with any eventuality.

When we are this divided, is there hope for the future?

President Cyril Ramaphosa has finally confirmed what many of us suspected all along — he had not consulted his colleagues in the ANC and government when he announced he would appoint a minister of electricity. 

Some of his ministers, including minerals and energy minister Gwede Mantashe and then-minister in the presidency Mondli Gungubele, sounded unconvincing in front of TV cameras as they tried to explain the president’s reasoning in appointing an electricity minister just moments after the president finished delivering his state of the nation address last month. 

While the minnows spat, the big fish wins back the pond

The country’s on tenterhooks. Many are gnashing their teeth. Will the EFF push us over the precipice of revolution? Fear and excitement abound.

Fear for those with businesses to lose. An opportunity to loot is always exciting for those without jobs. Whose economy is it anyway, they’d argue.

Will tomorrow be our January 6 moment? Remember the storming of the Capitol in the US, with Donald Trump supporters overpowering security and trashing the seat of power in the biggest economy in the world? Or the storming of the Bastille, as insurgents took control of medieval Paris? Or will it be July 2021 riots 2.0?